--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    UNDERCOVER SURFTIP!  - WWW.POUET.NET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Undercover surftip?! Yes, this will be a new series in UNDERCOVER. I will try to
establish a line of  articles about  cool websites, that impressed me  a lot and
are, ofcourse, also in some way Atari related.

In  this first  article  I want to  present you a very  interesting  website for
sceners  that are interested mainly in demos, intros, parties and  diskmags, the
marvellous POUET.NET!

Right at the beginning  I have to admit that POUET.NET isn't a real homepage but
more a gigantic  database about scene  productions, and the  clue is: it is open
for all systems! I stumbled  over it via the ORANGE JUICE homepage, another very
exciting cross plattform scene center.

At first I didn't know what POUET.NET is about, untill I  checked that this site
is a database or better a  data/link base for  scene productions  at all. And so
you will find  over thousand (!) scene productions here! Ok, those  prods aren't
on POUET.NET really, but it links to every single one and  so you can search for
a lot of productions without stumbling from one page to the next.

Besides informations about latest releases and parties, POUET.NET offers several
possibilities to  search for a production. So you can  search through the groups
list for  interesting stuff. For every listed  group are the  linked productions
shown and with just another click you will get  more info about  the production,
together  with a  screenshot (sometimes even an  animation!), release  dates and
rankings of parties, and last but not least comments of registered users...

Registered users?! Yes! You can  register for  free to  POUET.NET. Just check in
with your  scene datas, take an avatar (small but funny looking comic icons like
an Commodore sign, creatures of games (Bubble Bobble) or something) and then you
can add comments to the listed productions, you can add parties  and group names
and, over all, you can add productions to the huge link list!

Therefore you have  to fill out a sheet, add the url and a screenshot (from your
own harddisk - but if  you haven't  any, it isn't a problem... it is just better
for the others to check out what's behind a prod) and submit it to the database.
Yes... There are  hundreds of users registered so far, ofcourse mainly  from the
Wintel systems, but the database offers a wide spectrum of releases.

So you can stumble over Amiga ECS and AGA, ST and Falcon, Gameboy and PSX demos,
C64 and Linux stuff, BeOS and DOS releases... it is marvellous  and shows up the
output of the !whole! demo-scene  at all. And since  there are  several Atarians
and also  ex-Atarians involved  as well, just  as EXOCET of JFF/PYJAMA, KENET of
RIBBON and my humble presence, you can find now a lot of  Atari related products
there as well.

As a special feature POUET.NET features even a highscore that  lists the biggest
link-uploaders. If  this isn't a reason to  help them  to grow up  more, I don't
know how I can make you more interested in joining POUET.NET.

Oki... I stopped  another sentence  above. About the  search for productions. If
you don't know the band's name of a production, you can search through the whole
releases list as well. There are all releases listed by name and with short info
(via icon you can see if it is a magazine, cracktro or something) about the band
and the system it is running on.

If you're using the  bandlist itself you will also get the url or their homepage
if they  have one. This is nice for the fact if  you're searching for  more info
about the group behind the single productions.

Ok... that's it for this point. I want  to tell  you now about  some other, very
interesting features as well.

POUET.NET is giving you some kind of popularity poll as well! If you're going to
leech software via POUET.NET and you're  surfing on the info  page of the single
productions, those will rise in the popularity. That  means the more  people are
leeching their stuff via POUET.NET the  more the  popularity of  the single prod
will rise. And for this there is also a top ten of the most  watched demos/sites
included as well as a list of the latest ten new links.

Ofcourse it will be very hard for Atari releases to reach that  chart list, this
is dominated by WIN and AGA releases atm, but even an ECTS Amiga demo, "STATE OF
THE ART" by SPACEBALLS from 1992 (this demo is some kind of the idol of the Fo3o
demo "LOST BLUBB") matched it to stay in that charts.

The most popular ST demo atm is "TUT!" by WILDFIRE, that gained  1o % so far and
so it overrates even a lot of WIN demos.

Hui... what else? After the meaning of the page some words for the other points,
such as navigation, styling, actuality, sense and so on...

The navigation  of the site is mostly good, the  switches and links  are easy to
find, the  submit sheets are easy to  fill out, no crap blocks  several parts of
the page. Unfortunately the very  high resolution of  the page cames  along with
very small fonts and even some buttons are very small. So you need a big monitor
to check the stuff without damaging your eyes ;)

The styling is good as well. The page is designish styled, blue colours overall,
but no glaring colours. There is except some scene related stuff no advertisment
crap included, no damn special info's from your sponsor opening...
Furthermore the page offers the possibility of the  users to create own logos to
for the page that will be built in by the makers.
The buttons and avatars are nice  looking and  giving a  typical french touch to
the  page? French touch? Yes! As also  ORANGE JUICE, also POUET.NET is  a french
production and shows that esp. the frenchies have no big problem to see the demo
scene at one whole thing and not in hundreds of split and single system scenes.

The page  is overall very  plain styled and  that offers  a fast  loading of the
single lists and info-pages. Therefore it  gets some bonus  points, because some
other pages are  braking themselves out with overstyled stuff just as huge logos
and textures. So POUET.NET fulfills it's meaning much more, to give a fast leech
terminal to the users.

Actuality... The page offers  demos of the last  15 years but  always the latest
stuff is included as well, IF, yes, if the  registered users are  fast enough. A
small window also gives short info about the latest parties  too. But because it
is overall  an alltimes leech and database the actuality  is in  comparison with
ORANGE JUICE  for example  of not as big  interest. Anyway, the huge  ammount of
registered users  should avoid it to let the page  fall back into  dust and esp.
because there are still hundreds and thousands of demos of different systems are
still missing and so the page as always worth a visit.

Sense?! Yes! This page makes sense. It makes a big step  forwards in  comparison
with single system oriented pages like TREBEL.ORG or SCENE.ORG. The point of the
crossplatform  page furthermore gives the people the chance to take a small view
to other systems as  well. Also the possibility to add  comments makes  a lot of
sense, just because a  lot of  meanings and  comments about the  single included
links/releases will make you more or less interested in the stuff.

So... what else? After all I  have to mention some bugs. POUET.NET runs with the
version o.6 atm. This shows that  it is still in an  early stage of development.
The errors are depended only to the registered users atm. So you  can't add some
productions because they are allegedly already  included, but they  aren't. That
sucks, just  because you  don't know about it before  and will get the  bug info
right after finishing your submit. So the whole work is lost.

Another bug is  that you will not get a full list of  users. Maybe it depends on
the browser, maybe not, but after a long loading time the system crashes and you
have to start again.

Bugs, bugs, bugs... that isn't  all, there  is a horrible  one in the submitting
area as well, just because  when you entered some prod and submitted it you will
see the whole screen  again, but with wrong  windows that make  it impossible to
enter  a new production, you  just have  to enter another area, just to submit a
party or group first  and have to change  back to the  prod area... that costs a
lot of time and goes onto your nerves with the time as well.

But those  bugs don't break the  big reputation  of the  site, around 15oo scene
productions are  linked so far, many hundreds of users are registered  and I for
myself think POUET.NET is the best way to check  up the things going on in other
scenes. Furthermore it offers always a way  to get the latest  releases on every
system. Even if the ammount of linked Atari productions  is very limited so far,
it's sense for our scene is growing more and more... Because POUET.NET shows the
world, that  there is still something  going on Atari and makes freaks  of other
systems anxious to see what our scene is doing...

Anyway, just surf it on... www.pouet.net

...and check it out by yourself!

Last but not least the ratings...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Design ..........  9o % - nice and straight design, not too frickeling stuff.
Atari related ...  25 % - not much so far but growing!
Features ........  9o % - many links, submitting areas, many ways to interact
Actuality ....... 1oo % - updated daily!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
round up ........  78 % - but growing!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's it for this time...

.tSCc.                                                                   moondog
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------